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chapter twelve From Gbe to Yoruba: Ethnic Change and the Mina Nation in Rio de Janeiro Mariza de Carvalho Soares The Mina People in Rio de Janeiro In Rio de Janeiro different African ethnic groups were hidden under the category “Mina” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This classification gives a false sense of continuity to a social and ethnic process that was, in fact, extremely flexible over time. In Brazil most slaves identified as Mina came from the Bight of Benin, having been brought there from Ouidah, Lagos, and other ports. In the eighteenth century the term “Mina” basically referred to Gbespeaking peoples, but during the nineteenth century the term also included Yoruba-speaking peoples, who by then were in the great majority. This study focuses on both the Yoruba and Gbe peoples and on their role within the Mina of Rio de Janeiro.1 Gbe and Yoruba are not usual terms in the Brazilian historiography . In Brazil the usual name for Yoruba-speaking peoples is Nagô (especially in Bahia) or Mina, as a generic name. Yoruba and Gbe are categories taken from the linguistic context that offer an operational classification of the different peoples of the Bight of Benin. According to Mary Karasch, the ethnic composition of the African population in Rio de Janeiro consisted of various African groups, including Mina, which in the Brazilian context were referred to as “nações” (nations). The Mina nation in Rio de Janeiro has been analyzed in a former work of mine.2 The present chapter reviews the information on the subject for the nineteenth century but demonstrates that people who were referred to as Mina were also present in the eighteenth century. A careful analysis of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggests that the meaning of this term changed over time. During the eighteenth century the Gbe peoples (Fon, Ewe, Mahi, Allada, and 231 Falola_Childs,Yoruba Diaspo 2/2/05 1:34 PM Page 231 others) who were brought to Brazil were largely sent to Bahia, but some also went to Rio de Janeiro, and from both places to Minas Gerais. The question here is to elucidate when the Yoruba reached Rio, and when they became visible in the city. Most of the Yoruba in Rio de Janeiro arrived there from Bahia in the early nineteenth century and joined an existing community of people identified as Mina. As is well known, the Yoruba were concentrated in Bahia, migrating to Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the newly independent empire since 1822. In Rio the Yoruba were called Mina. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, they had come to form a majority because of continued migration from Bahia. This investigation of the Mina in Rio de Janeiro goes against a major trend, which focuses largely on the “Bantu” origins of the African local slave population . Hence this study suggests that the movement of Africans to Rio was more complicated than previously recognized. While the major Atlantic routes did involve two axes, one from the Bight of Benin to Bahia and the other from Angola to Rio de Janeiro, such an approach overlooks the minor but important migration from the Bight of Benin to Rio and from Angola to Bahia.3 A first point to be discussed is terminology. As Robin Law has observed, the words “Yoruba,” “Nagô,” and “Lucumí” have been used in different ways, in both Africa and the Americas, depending on place and time. The term “Lucum í” was used as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whereas Nagô appears only in the eighteenth century. Also, the word “Lucumí” was more frequently used in Spanish America, while the Portuguese, French, and English tended to use the word “Nagô.” Law also found no reference to the word earlier than the mid-eighteenth century. According to Parés, the word “Nagô” first appears in Bahia in 1734.4 One way to measure the relative importance of Gbe and Yoruba in Rio is by comparing information from local documentation about the Mina with information about the slave trade from the Bight of Benin to Rio and to Bahia. Unfortunately, given the large gaps in the available documentation to Brazil, and especially to Rio de Janeiro, it is impossible to resolve the issue in this way.5 An additional problem is that many slaves who arrived in Bahia were actually reshipped to Rio de Janeiro. The transfer of those slaves is not included in the voyage...

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